“Finding and sharing exquisite content has never had more value than it does today.” – Buffer.
There’s no doubt about it, we’re all searching out and consuming content like a shark in a feeding frenzy. There seems to be an unspoken race to be the first to share the most relevant and useful piece of information as soon as it’s published in order to stand out from the crowd.
“82% of marketers curate content” – [I Make News Inc]
Curating content is part of the marketing process today.
Ian Cleary, of Razor Social confirmed that consistently sharing the most useful and relevant content is a great way to build trust and authority in a brand, and become the ‘go to’ expert in a given field.
“Over 50% of marketers that curate content indicate that it has increased their brand visibility, thought leadership, SEO, web traffic and buyer engagement.” – Curata
However, we’re so time-poor these days that marketers are increasingly on the lookout for one place from which to curate all their content. As Mike Kaput suggested, shopping for content is rather like shopping for groceries,
“Back in the day, you’d buy meat from a butcher, veggies from a grocer … Grocery shopping was a multi-stop affair. Now, you visit a local supermarket or a big-box retailer that has everything you need in one place.”
So when marketers can visit top content ‘supermarkets’ like Feedly, Storify, Curata, Flipboard, scoop.it why would they consider looking at SlideShare?
SlideShare: the ‘Quiet Giant’
Steve Olenski wrote an article for Forbes magazine in 2013 where he described SlideShare as the “Quiet Giant of Content Marketing”.
Imagine the vast resources available at the British Library in London or the New York Public Library, and now consider how odd it would be if only 17% of the population in London and New York actually visited them.
SlideShare is an awesome digital resource “with over 18 million uploads in 40 content categories.” It is also one of the top 100 most-visited websites in the world. Despite that, it’s still only used by “around 17 percent of B2B marketers”.
That must mean there’s a heck of a lot of fresh, new content just waiting to be discovered, curated and shared.
Not only that, SlideShare provides content in a unique format which is ideal for today’s lifestyles.
Quick, ‘Snackable’ Content
Our busy lifestyles often dictate what choices we make.
For example, we wouldn’t choose to sit down to a 5-course meal during a 30-minute lunch break; chasing some quick snacks around a conveyor belt at Yo!Sushi might be a better option.
Equally, we don’t have the time or inclination to read volumes of stodgy text in one go but rather choose ‘bite-sized’ content which is more convenient to read and quicker to digest.
Our attention spans have also shrunk considerably to just 8% (that’s 1% less than a goldfish) so marketers need to consider not only what kind of content to curate but in what format to present it to their audience.
“Our attention spans and communication habits seem to be following the development path of micro-processors. Smaller and faster” – Jeff Bullas.
In an earlier blog I wrote about how humans have been hard-wired to absorb information visually. As this Infographic by visual.ly illustrates, visual information is processed 600,000 times faster than text, and our visual recall is 80% greater than auditory recall.
SlideShare, therefore provides marketers with a ‘double-whammy’!
It delivers micro-content in the form of bullet points or short paragraphs which are quick and easy to consume, whilst leveraging the power of visually appealing, memorable graphics.
Sharing Content from SlideShare
Curating content is only half the battle.
As Ian Cleary mentioned above, marketers need to be able to share content easily with their audience.
SlideShare optimises each presentation so that they can be liked, downloaded, embedded, emailed or shared to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn either from a desktop or mobile device.
How to Share a Presentation
SlideShare ClipBoards
Not only that, since August of this year SlideShare made it possible for users to save presentations they enjoy into collections or ‘ClipBoards’.
This concept of curating and organising content into collections was first introduced by Pinterest, a digital Pin Board, where users can save images from the internet and ‘pin’ them onto their own ‘boards’ for their own enjoyment, for sharing with other Pinterest users or across social media.
Other social media platforms followed suit with Twitter Lists, custom collections on TweetDeck and most recently Google Plus Collections.
In order to save a presentation you like, simply ‘clip’ any slide from the presentation and save it to a Clipboard you’ve created under your Profile.
How to ‘Clip’ a SlideShare Presentation
Save as many ‘clips’ to as many different Clipboards as you like and organise them according to topic (social media, content marketing, visual marketing, etc).
Create & Organise Clipboards on SlideShare
Once saved, you have the option to:-
(a) view the original presentation again by clicking a link
(b) share the entire Clipboard on social media or via email, or
(c) add your own notes for future reference
How to View, Share and Edit ClipBoards
Perfect Presentation Tools
Perhaps one of the reasons why SlideShare is still undervalued is because presentations are so often associated with tedious business meetings, graphs and pie-charts.
That may have been the case in the past but there are many new tools on the market which are capable of turning a boring presentation into something far more engaging and visually appealing.
Next time you have a presentation to make, why not consider using one of the following as alternatives to Keynote or PowerPoint:-
- Google Slides
- Prezi: ticks a big box when it comes to visually appealing slides. To upload to SlideShare just save your presentation as a PDF and upload the file.
- Haiku Deck: In November 2014 Haiku Deck teamed up with SlideShare, allowing Haiku Deck presentations to be uploaded and shared on SlideShare and LinkedIn. Benefits include ease of use for presentation novices, mobile optimisation and social sharing. However, you won’t find some of the more sophisticated editing tools other presentation tools have.
- Canva: my personal favourite. Select a pre-formatted template, upload your own graphics or choose from a great selection provided by Canva for no more than $1 a piece. Add text overlay, edit font, add branding.
Key Takeaways
- Curate content in order to provide your followers with informative and helpful information
- Be seen as a ‘go to’ expert in your field; build trust and authority in your brand
- Use SlideShare’s huge resources to find content that’s ideally suited to today’s busy lifestyle
- Create ‘ClipBoards’ and save collections of presentations
- Share individual presentations or entire ClipBoards from a desktop or mobile device
- Try a variety of new tools to create more engaging and visually appealing presentations.
Take a look at this handy 10-Step Checklist and ensure you’ve made the very most of your presentations before uploading to SlideShare.
How We Can Help You
Generate interest in your brand, increase your following and attract attention online with eyeball-grabbing presentations!
We’d like to offer you a FREE 30-minute telephone consultation, available until 30 December 2015, so you can discuss any difficulties or issues you have with your presentations.
We’re happy to create presentations on your behalf so contact us today and find out how we can help you. 
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